Extreme weather events drive up the numbers Several new climate records were set in 2016. As data from previous years shows, climate and weather-related disasters regularly account for most of the global total (see figure 1.14). In 2016, they were responsible for 23.5 million displacements, or 97 per cent of all disaster-related displacements. All of the 10 largest disaster displacement events in absolute terms were weather-related. Flood disasters tend to make up the majority of climate and weather-related displacements each year. In 2016, however, storms caused 12.9 million displacements worldwide – 55 per cent of all weather-related disasters – by triggering mass displacement of populations living in exposed and vulnerable coastal areas. Seven of the 10 largest displacement events of 2016 were stormrelated, and nine out of 10 relative to population size (see figure 1.15). The number of new climate and weather-related disaster displacements in 2016 was above the annual average since 2008 of 21.7 million, but displacements associated with geophysical hazards were well below average, with approximately 700,000 displacements recorded in 2016. Excluding 2008 as a highly unusual year because of the Sichuan earthquake disaster in China, disasters triggered by geophysical hazards have caused an average of around two million displacements a year. Despite the lower than usual figure, there were still some significant earthquake disasters in 2016 that were followed by prolonged displacement and increasing vulnerability for those affected. A 7.8 magnitude earthquake and strong aftershocks struck the Manabí and Esmeraldas provinces of Ecuador on 16 April, killing more than 600 people, displacing at least 259,000 and leaving some towns needing to be permanently relocated.78 On the same day on the other side of the Pacific, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake displaced at least 196,000 people in and around Kumamoto in the southern Japanese prefecture of Kyushu.79 One year on, more than 47,000 people who lost their homes are still displaced.80 Health problems brought on or worsened by prolonged displacement, especially among older people, caused more deaths than the direct impacts of the earthquake, such as collapsing buildings. Out of 170 indirect deaths reported, 90 per cent were of people over the age of 60.81 Figure 1.14: New displacements by disasters by hazard category, 2008 to 2016 14.0% 31.9m 86.0% 195.7m Source: IDMC 32 GRID 2017 TOTAL (2008 - 2016) 227.6m